


End Game

by lifevolutionary



Category: Smallville
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-12
Updated: 2010-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:15:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifevolutionary/pseuds/lifevolutionary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only sinners can be offered redemption (or, Lionel's death, a discussion on the nature of power and a bright red truck)</p>
            </blockquote>





	End Game

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to laurapops2008 on LJ for looking over this and placating my paranoia.
> 
> In my head this is slash but really it's pretty much gen. I've left it open for a slashy sequal though, which I may actually get around to writing this summer, maybe.

He was in his garage when Clark found him. Sitting on the flatbed of a bright red pick-up truck with white racing stripes; his back leaning against the cabin and his arms curled loosely around his knees. Not entirely sure what he was doing there, just that he needed somewhere to hide from the world for a while and this truck, that he still thought of as Clark's, seemed strangely appropriate.

Well, more accurately, he was in his garage when Superman found him.

Lex looked up from contemplating his really expensive shoes. Knew he'd fucked himself up this time when he couldn't even dredge up any scathing thoughts about the utterly ridiculous costume. Just stared at the face, both familiar and somehow not. He'd never been sure how Clark managed to hide so much of himself without a mask.

Superman stood in his usual, overly arrogant, arms folded pose and tilted his head sideways, looking at Lex consideringly. "You had Lionel Luthor killed."

He should have felt some sort of emotion, Lex thought, hearing it said out loud. He didn't.

"Do you really expect me to admit to that, Clark?"

Superman's shoulders slumped, his arms fell to the sides and he canted his hip forward so he could slouch against the edge of the truck. Suddenly he wasn't Superman; he was just Clark in a silly outfit.

"Do you really expect me to admit to that, Lex?"

Lex shrugged and tipped his head back against cool metal, "Not anymore."

 

There was a sigh and then the rush of air and noise that Lex would have been able to identify in his sleep as the feel of Clark going supersonic close by. He didn't even have time though, to quell the tiny voice in the back of his head telling him he'd fucked up again, lost Clark again even though he'd never got him back after losing him years ago, before the rush of air was back. He lowered his gaze from the ceiling. Clark was climbing into the back of his truck. And this time it was actually _Clark_ Clark; bed-head hair, bad suit, dorky glasses and all.

 

"There are security cameras all over this place you know." Lex pointed out with the familiar feeling of not knowing what the hell was going on. Familiar around Clark, anyway. Never around anyone but Clark.

 

"Not any more." He'd got that smug grin on his face that made him look eighteen again.

 

Lex raised his eyebrows, "Breaking the cameras is probably the quickest way to get the guards to come running." He felt strangely detached; knowing he should care about what Clark had done to the cameras but really not being able to muster the anger.

 

"I didn't break them." Clark rolled his eyes, "I looped them."

 

"Since when do you know how to do that?" Curiosity though, that he could achieve. Probably only because it was Clark but then Clark had always been able to bring out more emotion in him than most.

 

"Being best friends with a science geek has got to have some perks." Clark's eyes were affectionate and he was smiling and he hadn't said that sentence in the past tense.

 

"I'm pretty sure I never taught you how to do that." Lex bantered on automatic while inside he tried to come to terms with the fact that maybe what he and Clark had had wasn't quite so broken as he'd thought it was.

 

"Being friends with you taught me that cameras _could_ be looped, and that it's often a better option."

 

"So, basically you're saying I taught you how to be subtle?"

 

"Basically, yeah."

 

"Well I obviously didn't do a very good job. Red and blue lycra, Clark? I know you have the figure for it but...really?" Making Clark blush was apparently still just as easy and definitely just as fun. Lex resolved to do it more often.

 

"Why now?"

 

"Why have I waited until now to criticize the disaster that is your costume? I'm not entirely sure myself."

 

Clark gave him one of those looks that said he could see right through Lex and was wondering how Lex ever got anything done because he was obviously an idiot. "Why have you waited till now to have Lionel..." He trailed of, obviously searching for an appropriate way to say it. Maybe Clark had learnt subtle; in his own Clark-like way.

 

"Disposed of?"

 

A handwave; as if to dismiss the interruption and acknowledge the phrase at the same time. "Why after all this time and all he's done; to you, to me, to Metropolis," _to us_ Lex heard, unspoken. "If you were going to do it, why not do it years ago."

 

That...really hadn't been what he'd expected Clark to say. Back when they'd been best friends he'd learnt not to have expectations about Clark unless he wanted to be proven wrong. It seemed he was slipping. The guilty expression and the rushed sentences were pure Clark. The words...

 

"Clark Kent, advocating murder. I never thought I'd see the day."

 

"Lex." Pleading. Needy. How he'd wanted over the years to hear Clark say his name like that. This wasn't the situation he'd planned to hear it in.

 

"You think Lionel Luthor is an easy man to kill, even if you don't plan to get away with it? This was always my end game, Clark. What I've been building up to all my life." He laughed and he knew it sounded wrong, raw, pained. Didn't need the horror in Clark's eyes to tell him that. "And in freeing myself from him, I've become him. So I guess he won anyway, in the end." He turned his face forward, unable to meet Clark's eyes anymore. "It's sort of a family tradition; murdering your parents."

 

There was silence for a long moment and Lex closed his eyes, braced for the supersonic rush of air. He flinched when instead strong fingers curled around his jaw and Lex automatically opened his eyes as Clark gently pulled him round to meet his gaze.

 

"I highly doubt Lionel was this cut up after he murdered his. Just because he forced you into this, it doesn't mean it's who you are."

 

"You always were too trusting where my character was concerned."

 

"Now, see, you're contradicting yourself. You were always complaining that I didn't trust you enough." Clark was smiling as if he'd already won this fight. Lex wondered if he was right. Then he wondered what they were fighting about.

 

"Trying to save me from myself again, Clark? I thought you gave up on that a long time ago?"

"I did." A rush of loss, a safety net Lex had never realized was there, suddenly gone, leaving his sanity balancing precariously with nothing to stop the fall... "Now I'm trying to get you to save yourself."

The flood of relief was so strong he almost lost control of the gasp that threatened to escape his throat. Since when had Clark's faith in him mattered so much? _Since forever_, a voice whispered in the back of his mind, _since he saved you_.

"I'm not sure I can do that. I'm in to deep." The brightness that sprang to Clark's eyes then, made emotion that Lex had thought he'd buried years ago flare up as if brand new. Suddenly he was very aware that Clark was still gently holding his jaw and how close together they were.

"But you want to. Don't you see, that's what makes you different from him. You want to be better than that."

"I still want power, Clark." Lex protested, not quite ready to believe that it could be this easy to earn redemption.

"But not just for powers' sake, or even what it could give you. You always wanted it to shape the world, to turn it into something that worked." Clark's smile was sly now and damn, when had he got so perceptive.

"You know me far too well."

"I do. I'd love to play poker against you sometime." Lex froze. That could have been a casual joke or even a threat but he knew Clark as well, better than almost anyone else did, and there was something in the way Clark had said that that implied something else. He looked into Clark's hopeful expression and actually made himself consider seriously if he could do it; if he could live a life that would justify Clark looking at him like that. It was a blow to his self awareness as a super-villain to realise that maybe he could.

"I'm sure that could be arranged. If you'd consent to dine at the penthouse next week we could discuss it further."

The blinding grin that Clark rewarded him with told him he'd been picking up the right hints. "I'd like that."

"Wednesday, 8 o'clock?" Lex was aware that he sounded unacceptably emotional by his father's standards but was also very aware just quite why that didn't matter any more. Clark's smile softened and he placed a hand on Lex's shoulder. The warm, firm grip seeming more real in that moment than anything Lex had felt in years.

"I'll be there." Clark said and Lex carefully let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, trying not to notice the loss as Clark pushed away from him and climbed off the truck's flatbed. Once he was standing again Clark turned back to look at Lex with amusement glinting in his eyes. "I can't believe you kept the truck."

In the time it took Lex to formulate a response and open his mouth to speak Clark had vanished in a supersonic rush and Superman was once again standing in Lex's garage. Knowing that the cameras would be back on Lex altered the answer he had been about to give and spoke with a rueful smile.

"It reminds me of an old friend." That earned him one last incandescent Clark-smile before the next rush of air told him he was alone.

Lex smiled softly; but from now on, maybe not quite as alone as he had been.


End file.
